How to convince your partner to embark on a three month tour
STEP ONE: Seed wanderlust years in advance
Develop an obsession with road trip films: Into the Wild, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Big Easy Express, Last Cab to Darwin and Little Miss Sunshine. Watch your favourite film ‘Almost Famous’ at least once a year.
Now if a pandemic locks you down into your two bedroom Footscray apartment, this can hot house these seeds of wanderlust into a thriving ivy with a choke hold on your dreams that screams ‘YOU MUST ESCAPE THESE FOUR WALLS.
STEP TWO: Survive seven years of teaching and apply for long service leave
Easier said than done, but this will reduce the financial risk of your first ever tour and also give you time to plan the whole thing thoroughly. This planning is going to involve hundreds of emails back and forth with venues and multiple trips to the library, so give yourself enough time.
STEP THREE: Max out your library card and get obsessed with spreadsheets.
Go to multiple libraries several times to pick up all the books you can with titles like Ultimate Weekends in Australia, Hit the Road, Best Roadtrips of Australia.
Crawl through your favourite folk band’s tour itineraries. Feverishly search Urbanlist travel guides to the best of everything. Trawl through Atlas Obscura.
Create a spreadsheet of 628 Australian towns, big and small with columns sorting things such as ‘venues’, ‘folk clubs’ and ‘draw cards’. Populate this spreadsheet over three obsessive days listening to The Mae’s ‘Parallel Parks’ on repeat. It’s a great song.
STEP FOUR: Agree on the non-negotiables of the trip
No more than five hours drive on a day unless absolutely necessary
Stay at least two nights at each location so you get a full day (we learned this the hard way with the over-ambitious Tasmania itinerary of 2015)
STEP FIVE: Work out what is realistic
You are not going to cross the Nullabour Plain. Western Australia might have to be another tour another time. You also may not get a chance this time to go underground at Coober Pedy, but guess what - there is an underground motel on the way at White Cliffs in New South Wales. You remember seeing it on a rerun of The Great Outdoors as a kid. Book it immediately!
STEP SIX: Soothe your partner’s nerves with a powerpoint
At some point in this process your partner might look over your shoulder as you wrangle Google Maps to find the best way to get to the Tablelands Folk Festival and exclaim, “Is that the Bourke and Wills route?! Are we going to die in the desert surrounded by our instruments?!”
Create a pretty powerpoint with all the best tourist shots and weirdly specific museums. Talk your partner through the various route options. Prepare to be surprised, they might love the idea of going through Outback New South Wales and insist you both can make it to both Mungo National Park and the Flinders Ranges.
STEP SEVEN: Provide your family with an excuse for an awesome DIY camper trailer project
You may have never really camped before. You may struggle to hit a nail with a hammer. But your in-laws have renovated multiple houses and perhaps even more impressively, once created a functioning tandem bike out of two different bikes. Talk to them, and they might remember a family in town who offered them an old camping trailer. Be amazed at their skills in creating extra windows and cutting the door in two so it can open from the middle. Spend a weekend with them pot-riveting, spray painting and sanding. Marvel at their skills.
Step Eight: Empathise with every other indie band about the grinding tour admin.
Do a bit a day. And a bit more. Make lots of checklists. Double tap a venue if the email isn’t replied to. Triple tap if necessary. Don’t take rejection personally, it’s wild times in the wake of a pandemic (that really keeps coming) and it’s hard to tell who is understaffed and on the brink. Smash through your goal of 50 applications.
Step Nine: Release tickets and get excited
Set up all the tickets in Bands In Town so that they are easy to find on your website. Post the poster with a picture of you and your partner holding your instruments under a street sign at your home town.
Step Ten: Reach out for help from your awesome community
